


But It Won't Erase

by broadcastdelay



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Post-Season 3A, Uneasy Allies, Werewolf Turning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2013-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-02 05:39:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broadcastdelay/pseuds/broadcastdelay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When newly-turned werewolves start popping up in Beacon Hills, Chris Argent goes to bring Derek back to town to help clean up the mess. In cleaning up the mess, though, one last werewolf gets created. And somehow that’s not even the most unexpected development in Chris’s life that year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But It Won't Erase

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/gifts).



> My everlasting thanks to [motionalocean](http://archiveofourown.org/users/motionalocean) for the beta, and particularly for pointing out when injuries had migrated to entirely different body parts, and when certain key narrative connections had occurred only in my head. 
> 
> Title from Jukebox the Ghost’s “Somebody.” 
> 
> Warning: Contains character death, but not of any character who hasn’t already died before.

_What would you have done?_ Victoria had asked him.

Chris couldn’t remember what he’d said. Something about morals, probably. Doing one’s duty, thinking about Allison, etc. He hadn’t known if he’d meant it or not.

 _Well,_ thought Chris, a little bemused, as he watched the last drops of blood trickle from a rapidly-closing wound, _now we know._

He looked across the room to the werewolf glaring at him resentfully.

“Well,” he said, smiling with more teeth than humor, “looks like it didn’t kill me.”

“Too bad,” the werewolf said flatly. “I was kinda hoping it might.”

Chris’s smile became ever so slightly more genuine, and he himself felt ever so slightly more grounded. Everything else might be different, but this—this was the same. “Life has a funny way of ignoring what you want, doesn’t it, Hale?”

Derek bared a fang, and a middle finger, and Chris almost laughed. Instead he huffed out a breath, and tilted his neck mockingly. “Or should I say, _Alpha?_ ”

* * *

* * *

Chris didn’t know when the last barriers had been broken—maybe when he’d first had to kill a friend the night of a terrible full moon; when his daughter had begun dating what he’d spent his life hunting; when his father had become a thing (had always been?) worse than the things they hunted. Maybe when his sister burned a home full of innocents. The lines kept blurring, and getting pushed back, and—he was a pragmatist. He could do enemy-of-my-enemy alliances. He could do tense, mistrustful encounters where the only thing keeping him from shooting the wrong wolves was the constant self-reminder that for now they were the less-wrong wolves.

He’d dealt mostly with Scott, and Stiles. The former, because Scott seemed to trust that Chris’s love of Allison, and Allison’s of Scott, would keep Chris from killing him (this was a false assumption). The latter, because Stiles assumed his humanity would save him (this was true, except on particularly bad days, when Chris questioned what humanity was). Then, one day, after a long day (of being kidnapped, among other things), he got a call. The voice on the other end was weary beyond words, and Chris heard in that weariness a kinship, even as he rejected the thought.

“I’m going out of town for a while,” Derek said. “And I’d warn you about a potential power vacuum, but I think we both know that’s a joke.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” Chris replied.

He supposed that the thing to do, were they different people leading different lives, would be to say _Let me know if I can do anything to help (water your plants, pick up your mail, take your beta for walks),_ but he didn’t want to, so he let the line remain silent.

The silence was almost long enough for Chris to hang up. He had things to do that didn’t involve waiting on words he didn’t really care to hear.

“You’re welcome,” Derek said, almost as if he was as surprised to be saying it as Chris was to be hearing it.

Chris grunted, assumed werewolf hearing could pick up the _goodbye_ implied therein, and hung up. His guns weren’t going to clean themselves, after all.

It was the last that he heard from Derek for almost two months.

He was somewhat surprised to hear, later, that he was the only one Derek had bothered to call.

* * *

Derek left with Cora (really left, the second time; wishes he could have left, the first, but—the scream of a pack member, it meant something. Meant that he had a banshee in his pack—the pack that used to be his—the pack that—hell if he knew whose pack it was anymore). He left, without the intention of coming back.

“Don’t call him until you’re at least 100 miles away,” Peter had told him (the first time, the aborted time, when they never even made it out of town). And Peter had said it matter-of-factly, as much as Peter could say anything without some leer, some angle, and yet Derek heard it anyway: _Of all the people you trust to know anything at all, why him?_

But Derek was already (half-)trusting Peter, so he could hardly do much worse than a (possibly retired) hunter. And Argent—Derek didn’t trust that Chris had Derek’s interests in mind, at all, but Derek trusted that he would do what he thought was the right thing. He’d proven that much, at least. So Chris could know, if not _where_ Derek was going, at least that he _was_ going, because Chris would know if it was ever necessary ( _really_ necessary) for Derek to come back.

102 miles out of Beacon Hills, Derek let Cora take over driving, and he dialed a number he’d memorized but never used. Chris picked up on the second ring, and his voice was tense and demanding when he asked, “Who is this?”

“Me,” Derek said, “Derek. I’m just—calling. To let you know I’m going to be out of town for a while.”

Chris—Chris _thanked_ him, which felt wrong, and it threw Derek for a moment. But even if he couldn’t find words, there were at least two that always answer a thanks, and so he threw them out there.

“You’re welcome,” he said, and then there was just a dial tone. Probably for the best—no more chance for Chris to start tracing his call (not that on a cell it likely mattered, not that Chris cared where Derek was, probably, but paranoia was a new self-defense technique Derek had been thinking of trying out; it seemed overdue). No more chance for Derek to say something inadvisable, like, _And, oh, hey, I’m not an alpha anymore._

Cora looked over at him. “Yeah, _that’s_ not gonna make him curious.”

“Eyes on the road,” Derek said, as he closed his own. He could relax, now. He wasn’t responsible for anyone but himself, and maybe Cora, but she’d been on her own for years (as she reminded him, sometimes, with an accusing edge he didn’t think he deserved but accepted, because it had to be someone’s fault, and he was the only one left to take it).

They drove east, and then they drove south, and they left the hills and woods and anything that felt remotely like home, and then finally they stopped, and settled. In Arizona, in a town with a name like a sneeze that Derek thought might be a nod to the dust that blew everywhere. Or just was, because some things just were.

They spent three months there, at a dude ranch, of all places, because it was handy temporary employment, and the manager seemed to think Derek would be an asset with their younger clientele, and because they let Cora work in the kitchen, for reasons Derek didn’t understand. Derek knew he didn’t have a whole lot of legally marketable skills, so he endured the indignity and he tried to let the teenagers, and twenty-somethings, and thirty-somethings, and their elderly grandmothers, down as easily as possible when they winked and pinched and insinuated. Cora just egged them on, and he tried to be annoyed, but it was still hard to see anything but a miracle when he looked at her, so he never gave as good as he got (because what he got was so much better than what he deserved).

Derek thought about the people and the place they’d left behind. Often, but not always. The trees were the same, the Ponderosa pines that smelled like home, but there weren’t enough to lose himself in before they gave way to emptiness, where everything lay bare before the sun. 

When one young boy approached the horses like they were god’s own gift, stroked a mane like it was the most precious thing on earth, Derek thought about the way Scott talked about vet school, with hope.

When a worker came from a neighboring ranch to help rig a zip-line, and surprised Derek by attempting no conversation at all, only to light up as they broke for lunch, when a girl with a teasing voice brought him a sack of food, “hand-picked from the deli with care,” Derek thought about Boyd and Erica, and then he threw himself into the work until he was sure his super-strength had to be showing, but that was ok, because once he’d exhausted it all, he didn’t have to _think._

Once a young girl’s father came by later to thank Derek for handling a situation so maturely. Derek nodded, fixed his customer-is-always-right smile upon his face, and waited for the man to finish so they could shake hands and be done with it. But as he listened to the man drone on, nothing special in him except his love for his daughter, Derek thought of the way Chris fought for his own daughter as much as for any legacy or code. 

The other ranch hands and tourist wranglers, they left him alone, for the most part. They said, _what kind of cowboy scares away farm dogs?_ And Derek said, _Guess I’m not much of a cowboy._ Teddy, the cook (who relegated Cora to prep-only after her first day, and so Derek knew him to be a wise man), said _We knew that when we watched you try to get on a horse._ It was a routine, and it was nice, Derek thought, that people only expected him to say certain things. The beats of their jokes, the scripts for the guests, the _no_ ’s.

There was a place for Derek there, with low expectations and limited responsibility, and Derek burrowed himself into that rut like it was a foxhole in the desert. He breathed, and didn’t come up choking for air.

He’d half-expected someone to come after him, or at least call (even though he left no number with anyone but Peter and Chris, and he had no expectations of either), but time went on, and no one did. He half-worried that no one had called because they’d all gotten themselves killed. He wasn’t sure whether it was fear or apathy that kept him from checking, himself. _Schrodinger’s pack—_ until proven otherwise, they could just as easily all be fine and happy without him.

* * *

Chris had had better days, better weeks, better months. Times when he didn’t have to deal with over-interested FBI agents. Times when it only took a phone call to a well-connected hunter to make the interest go away. Times when he didn’t have to paste on a smile, dig out all his permits and licenses and talk federal firearms regulations with Scott McCall’s asshole of a father.

So when new werewolves started popping up around town, wreaking havoc and slaughtering livestock, family pets, and the occasional human being—because of course the newest rogue alpha couldn’t even wait until after the FBI left town before going on a rampage—well, Chris was a bit out of patience. Particularly when a bit of digging turned up the fact that the newest rogue alpha wasn’t so new, after all.

Chris mapped out several plans of attack; read some Pliny; returned to plotting. The break had cleared his mind, but it didn’t make the decision he’d made sit any easier.

“You don’t have to do this, Dad,” Allison told him, and he smiled back wryly.

“Who else, then? Your boyfriend?”

“He’s not—right now we’re not— _Dad._ ”

“I’m not going to make him, if he can’t. And maybe he won’t—it’s a lot to ask, especially coming from me. But I can’t do it by myself, not without backup, and I don’t want you in on this hunt.”

Allison pulled a face, but she knew why (she was best friends with part of the why), and so for once, she didn’t push.

Chris called a number he had saved in his phone only because contacts were everything, not because he’d ever thought to call it. No one answered, but that was fine. He didn’t expect an answer. So he tracked—that’s what he was trained to do, after all. And he tracked Derek to a ranch in Arizona. He didn’t particularly expect to find him there—he expected more crumbs to follow, in dizzying circles. Instead he found Derek, in chaps and boots, and now he’d never be able to unsee that image, or unfeel what it did to him. But he focused on his mission, on the fact that he needed a werewolf, this one. He told him, _You have to come kill your uncle again._ And Derek looked tired, but not surprised.

“Why?” Derek asked, and Chris just showed him the sheaf of photos.

“All new werewolves, turned since you left.”

And at that, Derek did look surprised.

“It has to be one of the twins,” Derek said. “Peter—he’s not an alpha anymore. You know that.”

Chris looked at Derek for some time, and he felt his expression transition from disbelief to pity. “ _You’re_ the one who’s not an alpha anymore, Derek.”

“It didn’t—it wasn’t supposed to work like that.” There was something lost in Derek’s eyes that it hurt to see, but Chris couldn’t turn away, or walk away, or do anything but deepen the loss.

“Actually, I think it was. We’ve tracked down a witch Peter was working with. Cora’s illness, the blackness, it was some sort of conduit. I’m not sure how it works, honestly, but, Derek—this is something Peter planned. For some time now, maybe since before he even came back.”

Derek went very still, as if on the watch for a danger still states away.

But all he said was, “Of course he did.”

Chris was glad for the lack of emotion in the words, because emotions get messy, and he had no comfort to dole out to the man before him, but he could say, “I’m sorry,” because he was.

He also said: “I’m leaving in the morning. You need to come back with me.”

And without further protest, Derek went to tender his resignation, and pack.

* * *

The foreman was unsurprised to hear of Derek’s leaving with no notice. “Always thought you were on the run from the law, clean background check or not!” he said cheerfully. “Got that look about ya.”

Cora wasn’t surprised either, but when she said, “I’m not going back,” Derek was.

Derek knew he looked gut-punched—he felt it—but all the same, he couldn’t find it in himself to try to convince her otherwise.

“I love you, Derek,” she said. “I want us to be a family, but—I can’t live like that, where every week there’s someone else to kill or be killed by. That’s why we _left,_ Derek.”

So Derek left the SUV with her—he never really liked it all that much anyway—and he hopped in Chris’s, and they drove away, dust and the soon-to-be-last of his family in the rear-view mirror.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Chris said, but there was no real bite in the words.

“I think I’m entitled,” Derek said.

The rest of the drive passed in silence.

* * *

They killed Peter again.

“Making a habit of this, aren’t you?” Peter asked even as blood spurted from his lips.

“Some habits—like you—die hard,” Chris said, and then he watched, empty, as Derek sliced through the neck in one quick, merciful stroke, because Chris hated Peter, had no respect for a killer like him, but—he thought, under different circumstances, he could have easily become this man himself.

It all seemed almost too easy, until, back at his apartment, Chris realized his arm was bleeding. He’d been injured enough times in battle to know adrenaline could be a powerful distractor, but it still seemed like a betrayal of his body, not to have let him know before now. And when he saw that the blood sprang not from a surface graze, but from the kind of claw marks that sink dangerously into muscle—that was the greatest betrayal of all.

* * *

Derek adjusted to the feeling of being an Alpha again. It wasn’t a power that was meant to ebb and flow, and he felt like pieces of himself that he’d lost still hadn’t grown back; that the spark had a different shape this time, filled different spaces. Maybe it had been warped by Peter. Maybe it had been warped by Derek himself.

Derek thought about trying to rebuild his pack, but he didn’t have it in him to follow through. To trust his judgment, or to trust those he chose.

He wondered what it meant when you killed your own family, twice, and wondered if he hated Chris for asking it of him, if he hated himself for complying (for doing the right thing, he told himself, but that was with the most uncertainty of all). He was still lying there thinking, on the floor of a loft that now seemed far too large, wondering if the lease was even still in his name anymore, when the phone rang. At first he thought it was Cora, because he’d forgotten to call and let her know he'd arrived safely, killed their uncle safely, all was well, etc.

That might have been an easier phone call.

* * *

Chris looked at the half-moon of stripes just above his wrist. It didn’t hurt, he thought vaguely. He’d heard that it wouldn’t, but it _should._ It should hurt, so he would have something to feel.

It was red, swollen at the edges, but already not bleeding much anymore. Soon it would fade altogether, and with it, he couldn’t help but think, melodramatically, his humanity.

He, Chris Argent— _Argent—_ was going to be a werewolf.

He took a moment to compose himself, to heave out the contents of his stomach, to thank god Allison had promised to stay at Lydia’s until he called with the all-clear.

He pulled out his phone and dialed, for the second time in less than a week, Derek Hale.

Derek’s mumbled _‘lo?_ made him think that maybe he’d woken him up, but he couldn’t make himself be sorry. He couldn’t even distract himself with thoughts of what Derek might look like, rumpled from sleep.

“Bit of a problem, Hale,” he said.

“Chris?”

“Yes. I’ve—it looks like Peter scratched me in the fight. Significantly.”

There was a long silence, and Chris used it to try to gather his thoughts. To think of questions he had, plans that needed made, people that needed informed, people that needed to be kept from ever knowing.

“I’ve gotta say, I’m not really sure what the procedure is, here,” Chris said. “I’m not even sure how it works, when you’re bitten by a dying alpha. Would I automatically a part of your pack now? Or none at all? Will it—am I—what am I supposed to do?”

The silence on the other end of the line was not comforting, but then, Chris wasn’t really expecting comfort.

Finally Derek cursed, and in the mix of mutterings Chris thought he could pick out _supposed to be a gift_ and _goddamned Peter,_ and if he had been less concerned with his own situation, he might have taken the time to feel bad for Derek.

“So,” he said, “Can you give any pointers? What are some things I might expect?”

“You can talk to Isaac or Scott,” Derek said, finally. “I can’t—I—ask them. But—heightened emotion, minimal control, especially until you find an anchor. But you probably already knew that. For you—maybe anger issues.”

“Really,” Chris said, “whatever might have given you that impression?”

He took a certain satisfaction in the fact that his voice was as even as ever. Calm, unruffled, matter-of-fact, civilized.

Chris was none of these things.

“I’ll come over,” Derek said.

“No, you don’t have—“ But Chris was speaking to an empty line. And no matter how much he knew he could’ve said the words— _I want to be alone—_ they wouldn’t have been quite true, anyway. Alone, he could almost see the ghost of his wife, and alone, he could imagine her saying, _Make the right choice._ He might not have minded so much, if only the dream-specter would tell him what the right choice was.

When Derek arrived, Chris let him in silently, sat down at the table and watched him do the same. Watched him, for some sign of something. He could see Derek growing uncomfortable under the stare, and he took a certain pleasure in that. That he, Chris Argent, could intimidate, even when he was completely and utterly terrified, a hair trigger from reaching for the gun strapped under the table and taking what his father would’ve called _the honorable way out._

Derek cleared his throat and said, combatively, “So you called me here to see, what, a scratch a five-year-old wouldn’t have cried over?”

“No,” Chris said, “to see what’s left of it.”

Derek’s eyes flickered back to the scrapes on Chris’s arm, and only the slightest dilation of his eyes showed that he tracked how quickly the wound was healing now, that he knew what that meant.

“Am I here to hear your last words, then?” Derek asked, and in it Chris heard bravado, but he couldn’t mock that, not now. He almost admired it. “I’ve gotta say, this one’s probably going to screw your daughter up for life.”

“No,” Chris said, “you’re not here for that.”

* * *

Derek had often thought, in moments of what in anyone else he’d have called whimsy, that Chris would make a good werewolf. He moved like one already—a predator, full of grace and purpose. He knew who he was, exactly, but he was willing to change his opinions of others. His voice, sometimes, had an authoritative undertone that made Derek want to show his belly, beg for approval.

Looking at Chris, as he was now—a werewolf—Derek could still see the hunter within.

The code had changed even before Chris had ( _We protect those who cannot protect themselves,_ Allison had announced to him triumphantly. Or—she had said it first in French, and then translated when Derek glared long enough), but Chris, as he was now, was something stronger than a code. Chris _was_ a code, in himself. Something for Derek to follow, cautiously.

He didn’t trust Chris yet, but he trusted his wolf’s eyes (golden, sharp, focused). He asked Chris once why his eyes weren’t blue; hadn’t he killed? “Yes,” Chris said, amused, “Haven’t we all? But I’ve never killed someone who didn’t need to die.”

“It shouldn’t make a difference,” Derek said, “Intent. Because—“

“Because of Paige,” Chris finished, because some things he had learned since becoming a wolf, but others it seemed like he had always somehow known. “But it’s not about intent, I don’t think; or even maybe about the victim’s innocence, whatever people say, because no one’s really innocent. I think it’s more about balance.” It didn’t seem to fully make sense to Chris, even, and he said it like he didn’t expect Derek to understand either, but Derek found himself nodding, slowly.

“Balance. So what’s you becoming a werewolf doing to the balance, then?”

“There have always been more hunted than hunters,” Chris said. “And I’m both, so that’s its own kind of balance. And you, the pack here—you all, you hunt as well. I don’t know how much more balance the universe can want. And sometimes the people talking the loudest about balance are the most _un_ balanced, so—we just live, I think.” 

* * *

Chris was an arms dealer, a security consultant, a widower, a father. He had been a brother, a son, a husband, a bully, a hunter. He would be what others needed him to be, because he’d been raised to serve a humanity that would never appreciate his sacrifice. But Derek—Derek didn’t fit into the lessons Chris had learned and the life Chris had lived. Derek still, after it all, didn’t make _sense_.

Chris’s nature was to investigate, to pursue—truth, or the things that mattered more than truth (safety). When he saw Derek standing, tense, chest heaving, eyes piercing, and asking, “Who am I to you?” he knew that there were stories and hurts behind that question that could bury them both, and he yearned to dig until he found them all, but instead he said, “My pseudo-alpha.”

“Who are you calling _pseudo_?” Derek asked, in a tone that said he was only half-offended and trying to decide if he should be more so.

“You,” Chris said. “You change your eyes like Allison changes shoes. And that’s a lot, even when we’re in dangerous situations better suited to combat boots than what she decides to run around in.”

Derek still looked like he wasn’t sure how to take that, so Chris conceded, and said, more seriously, “You’re…” and then paused. He couldn’t say _pack,_ the word made him want to laugh, with more hysteria than humor. Couldn’t say _alpha,_ couldn’t take the idea seriously. Couldn’t say _friend,_ really, and _acquaintance_ sounded almost cruel in its inadequacy. Werewolf relationships, he thought bemusedly, needed more words. “An ally,” he finally settled on.

Derek’s eyebrows crawled closer together. “Oh,” he said, and then he turned on his heel and left.

Chris had long ceased to be surprised at Derek’s abrupt arrivals and departures, but this one, he thought, might be his fault.

He still couldn’t think of a better word.

* * *

Derek didn’t know what he was doing. That’s nothing new, of course, but now—now there was Chris, who was older and maybe wiser and certainly a better fighter, and somehow wholly immune to his authority.

When Derek said, “This is the best way to train,” Chris just quirked an eyebrow and pinned him with a skeptical look.

When Derek said, “Because that’s what my parents told me,” Chris rolled his eyes and said, “Of course they did.”

When Derek said, “Because I’m the Alpha,” Chris laughed.

So Derek stopped trying to tell Chris what to do, because there was nothing that really needed done right at the moment anyway, except corralling all of Peter’s turned wolves, and Derek and Scott could handle that fine. Or—Scott could handle that fine. (“You make them nervous, Derek,” Scott said finally, in exasperation, after the most recent teen had burst into tears, “Try to look less scowly? If you—no, that’s worse!”)

Instead, when he met with Chris, they talked about things like werewolf history and folklore. About how history is the story of the victors, but in a prolonged combat where there are no victors it becomes just a miasmatic jumble of misinformation and confusion and hopes spun into fabricated fact. 

“ _Argent_ —it doesn’t just mean silver _,_ you know,” Chris lectured him once. Derek found Chris’s lectures strangely soothing, even when they branched into convoluted allegories. “There’s the French, of course: silver, and money. But there’s also the heraldic meaning. And it represented not just silver, but the moon as well. The moon, with its push, and its pull. There are some family legends where we weren’t hunters at all.”

“What, then?”

“Once, we were wolves,” Chris said with a quirk of his lips, “but on the night of an eclipse, another pack tried to kill the Argent pack. Only—the alpha had been prepared, and his trap killed them instead. When the moon came back, the Argents never changed back—and instead, they hunted the ones who forgot their humanity.”

Derek made a scoffing noise, and Chris acknowledged it with a slight nod. “I didn’t say it was _true,_ I said it was _there._ My mom told that one, sometimes, when Dad was out on hunts.”

Derek was torn between appreciating that Chris was sharing this with him—mentioning his mother, of whom Derek had heard so very little—and anger that Chris still insisted on romanticizing hunting, on saying that Gerard and Kate _went bad_ rather than _were bad,_ on saying that the Code still mattered.

Anger won, because anger was easy, and Derek said, “The Disney version, while your dad’s off playing at the Huntsman? You know the subtext _there,_ right?”

Chris’s skin was thick, and his poker face near-perfect, but Derek knew a wince when he saw one.

“You’re a wolf now, at any rate,” Derek said, and he thought he might be apologizing.

“For now,” Chris said, “it’s better than being dead.”

Derek wondered if that was acceptance.

* * *

So they fought: Other things, and each other. They talked: When necessary, and when in the presence of others. They looked: When the other was not looking, and when they were but neither could quite look away.

Chris wasn’t sure what spurred him to finally make a move. There were far more reasons _against_ than in favor, but most of those reasons were dead, and thus somewhat avoidable, whereas Derek was very alive, and always there, and every time the muscles in his jaw ticked Chris wanted to frustrate him more and then lick all that tension away. 

Chris was used to denying himself things that he wanted; he was used to sacrifice. He married a woman he respected and even eventually loved, though not in the way of fairy tales, because it was for the cause, for the code; everything had always been for that, until now, here he was, a retiree at 42. Chris wasn’t sure where all the sacrifice had gotten him, though, so one day he just gave in.

It might have had something to do with the fact that Derek’s face was, at that moment, bare inches from his, fangs extended and eyes red in a way that Chris had never known could be appealing (but was. So very much so).

Derek was yelling something—Chris had been yelling back. At some point Chris lost the words, and the anger, because anger is a vacuum; it gives way to things of substance (and Chris’s lust was fairly substantial, by that point).

And Chris couldn’t remember his argument, although he knew he’d been right, but now _right_ was kissing Derek, and so that’s what he did.

It felt just as right as the impulse had; _right_ in the way of clashing teeth and tongues, _right_ in the way of mindlessness and need; _right_ until Derek pulled back, looked at him, wild-eyed, and said, “What the hell?” and then kissed him back until it was right again.

* * *

For a while, Derek treated each time he was with Chris in anything other than a things-of-the-night-killing capacity as a separate instance. A series of one-night-stands, to be approached with all the caution such entailed. Use condoms, keep cell phone handy, avoid pet names, don’t drink or eat anything potentially laced with wolfsbane, don’t fall asleep, leave before breakfast. The standard things.

It took him a long time before he realized Chris might view it as anything else.

* * *

“Would this have happened if I hadn’t become a werewolf?” Chris asked once.

He said it teasingly, and thought he meant it as such, but it wasn’t until Derek said, without hesitation or humor, “ _No,_ ” that Chris realized he wanted the answer to be anything else.

“What, you only like me for my super-strength? I could’ve taken you even before.”

“I’d never sleep with a human again,” Derek said. “Not safe.”

There was nothing Chris could say to that, so he just nodded, and let the moment awkwardly pass.

* * *

The new werewolves were slowly absorbed into Derek’s pack. Not seamlessly, because they were all lost, confused, angry. They didn’t know him; he didn’t pick them. Their loyalty was a declaration Derek had no faith in; their control a thin line he policed until he forgot what sleep felt like.

Chris cornered him, said, “You need to delegate more.”

“So you can kill them when they start to lose control?” Derek knew he was overreacting, projecting, worst-case-scenarioing, but he could _see_ it, could see the tragedy that was building, the horrible things that could happen if he didn’t _fix_ things.

“So _you_ don’t lose control,” Chris said, and the sincerity in his eyes was almost too much to take.

There was a stubborn set to Chris’s chin, and Derek knew that Chris would win this argument, not because he was the more stubborn of the two of them (though that was probably true), but because Derek had been distracted by the cleft of that chin, by the five-o’clock shadow he wished to feel rasping against his own.

Derek used to be able to focus.

Derek used to be in control of this situation.

He thought.

* * *

Allison had asked him if Derek was coming over for Thanksgiving, and Chris had been embarrassed to realize he’d never even thought to ask. Once he thought about it, he realized he was in no way ready to ask, but still—he should’ve considered it. (“ _No,”_ he’d told her, and she’d relaxed. “ _Just the two of us this year.”)_

“We should probably talk about some things,” Chris said to Derek soon after that. Not because he actually wanted to talk about them, and not because he expected Derek to want to talk about them (Derek never wanted to talk about anything), but because it seemed like the thing to do. It was probably unhealthy to keep letting all these issues fester.

“Sure,” Derek said. “NASCAR. That’s a thing. You watch that. Let’s talk about that.”

Chris started, surprised Derek actually knew this. Chris had discovered that Derek knew a lot of unexpected things about him, but they were mostly ways to kill, distract, or incapacitate him. This was…surprisingly benign.

“I do. But actually I meant…”

“Jeff Gordon. He’s famous. Talk.”

“Right, no, not a fan of his. And since I don’t think you can name any other drivers, maybe we can—“

“Dale Earnhardt.”

“Sadly deceased.”

“So are most of the people you want to talk about.”

And that…was depressingly true.

Chris spent the rest of the afternoon explaining the points system as they watched a race, and if at some points he was pretty sure Derek was asleep, well, fine. At least he was still there.

After the coverage concluded, Chris turned the TV off, trying not to wake Derek (who he suspected never got enough sleep). Derek turned to face him, though, eye-corners slightly crinkled with the remnants of sleep, and said, “Strangely soothing. But boring as hell.”

“Huh,” Chris said, “Maybe it’s the laps that does it for you. Like chasing your tail.”

“No,” Derek said. “No dog jokes. Not allowed.”

Chris had figured that was probably the case. He had a list (in his mind, and in a secret, locked drawer of his desk—one of the three Allison had yet to find, and the one she would most regret if she did) of what was off-limits for this thing they had. He’d wanted, today, to see if anything could be moved off that list (he was thinking not).

It was three more weeks before anything got crossed off the list.

27\. Dad

            ~~27a. Trying to kill Derek~~

            ~~27b. Kanima-control~~

            ~~27c. Still being alive~~

            27d. Insanity possibly hereditary

Chris himself wasn’t ready for the last.

* * *

Derek knew Chris had questions, and so sometimes he answered them. He did it with the resigned benevolence of a lord granting a boon to a vassal, because he knew that the attitude both rankled and amused Chris, and thus distracted him from the actual content of the answers.

He frequently said _I don’t know,_ and usually it was true. So much of what he thought he knew came from sources he couldn’t trust anymore.

He’d seen Chris’s list (because Chris was clever, and had lots of hiding places, but Derek had years to hone his werewolf hearing, and he recognized the subtle, individualized squeaks of custom-made drawers, when he needed to).

He was working his way up to getting through the first ten items—they were the sort best dealt with in one fell swoop, a Bill of Relationship Questions, and then he’d pick and choose through the rest, so long as they never had to talk about #18 and its many subsidiaries (Kate, Kate, Kate).

Avoidance was a tool Derek could wield better than any other.

* * *

“Us, this,” Derek said once. “It’s like if Juliet woke up, and instead of killing herself, she went on and married Tybalt’s brother. If he had one.”

“I don’t think it’s quite like that,” Chris said, “not the least because we’re thankfully not cousins. But I’m impressed by the attempted reference anyway.”

“I slept with an English teacher once,” Derek said wryly. “You learn things.”

“I’d imagine you do. ‘Don’t sleep with evil druids,’ that sort of thing.”

Derek shoved him off the bed, but he let him back on again after, so Chris liked to think maybe they were working through their issues.

* * *

Derek found himself spending more time at the Argents’ apartment than he had ever imagined. The loft was too empty (and at the same time, too full of reminders—the water damage and the bloodstains that remained), and Chris’s gun cabinets (everywhere, even where he least expected to find them) were now less a threat and more a security blanket. And Chris was pack, which was probably more than Derek could conclusively say for anyone else in town.

There had been no talk of officially moving in, so Derek just made sure to always keep an overnight bag stocked, and never to presume.

Chris was a man of maps and plans, so if he had specific intentions, he’d let Derek know.

* * *

Lazy mornings in the kitchen, Chris thought, were what he’d missed most about having someone. What he’d never really had all that much of—he and Victoria were always busy, Allison was always there. Both good things, but too _real_ not to infiltrate the afterglow.

He wondered what the boundaries were, now. If there were any. If he could go up to Derek, nuzzle at his neck, pinch his ass, without getting flashing red eyes and anger in response. He thought about it longer than he needed to, perhaps, before remembering that he, too, was now a werewolf. He was likely to survive the anger. And Derek had a strange history of forgiving people.

Derek’s eyes didn’t flash red; they glowed. A slow, fiery burn, intensified by the sneaking-upward curve of his lips as he turned to face Chris and returned his affections with a slow, sensual glide that turned more physical, full of tongue and shoving-up-against-counters and disregarding of hazardous kitchen appliances in the way.

“Oh, ewww! My eyes! God, Dad, can you— _not? Please?_ Oh my God, I can’t take this. I’m going to Lydia’s. When you’re done—ugh, I’m leaving.”

Chris pulled back from the kiss with a sigh and rested his forehead against Derek’s.

“Bye, sweetie,” he called in a wry tone he knew his daughter—already out the door—wouldn’t hear. Derek snorted in his ear.

“I suppose I need to have a talk with her,” Chris said carefully. “About…this.”

“If you think you need to,” Derek said—equally carefully, eyes wary and fixed to Chris’s.

“I do,” Chris said. “I need to. I _want_ to need to. Not the actual—but the—“ And Chris always knew what to say; he didn’t know where this strange confusion was coming from. But it seemed to calm Derek.

“OK, then.” A pause, a consideration. “But I hope you don’t expect me to be there providing moral support, because that’s…not happening.”

Chris smiled. “I think that’s probably for the best _._ Hearing my teenage daughter accusing me of defiling our kitchen and her mother’s memory might…ruin the magic of it all.”

Derek did a mocking eyelash-flutter that turned into an eyeroll. “Yes, however would I cope with my shattered illusions that you’re a virginal and noble young lad?”

Chris may have wheezed just a little bit, and Derek wryly patted him on the back. “Yeah, too late for that,” Derek said, “I already know I got saddled with a bitter old man. I’m sure something’ll make me come to my senses, but not that.” His voice was cool, but his eyes were warm as they slid over Chris’s face, as if tracking the lines in his forehead, the grey in his hair, as if there was a pattern therein, something intriguing. Chris fought the temptation to suck in the gut that he didn’t have, to make some excuse for not being as young and beautiful as the man in front of him. But defensiveness—and they were always on the defense with each other—had a way of spoiling things, so he stayed quiet, and quieted the voice in his head that said Derek, after all, had a history of picking lovers who were no good for him, or for anyone else.

And then Derek gave a half-wave, said, “I’m off, then,” and was gone. And Chris was alone in his kitchen, suddenly viscerally aware of the coffeepot digging into his back, and wondering if he had any idea what was really going on, at all.

* * *

If they had no definition for themselves, others were less hesitant to put labels to it, and Derek knew the Argents’ neighbors disapproved; he’d heard their cough-comment-coughs in the halls.

Most people seemed to be as understanding as Derek had expected: which is to say, silently judging, but outwardly polite. Most people had never thought all that highly of Derek anyway, though, so it was no great loss. He worried a little about how Chris was handling it, and how Allison was taking it, but when he asked if they needed to keep it quiet, Chris just said, “Only if you want to. But it might be a little late for that.”

The pack seemed relieved enough that Derek was back, close enough to be blamed if things went wrong again, that they didn’t comment much. Even Stiles just said, “Older men, huh?” and Isaac said, “Yeah, I might hit that, too, if I were you.” Scott was still not really talking to him much, but that was to be expected.

Cora had, in one of the more awkward phone conversations of Derek’s remembrance, muttered something uncomplimentary about werewolf aging not being _that_ different, but she was family, and so she probably got a free pass. For now.

So Derek succumbed to Chris’s too-casual nudging and occasionally let himself be taken out in public, to coffee shops, to restaurants, and if it often felt awkward, that was mostly because he felt awkward in such places regardless, as if he was no longer quite civilized enough to belong there.

* * *

They’d been doing what Chris was inclined to call _dating,_ Derek refused to directly discuss, and Allison still (somewhat jokingly) covered her ears at the mention of, for several months, and Chris thought that things were going rather well, all things considered.

The non-verbal aspects of their relationship were going particularly well, in fact, and he’d decided that the added durability of being a werewolf was really an underrated bonus in the bedroom (and the office, and, on those occasions when Allison was safely stowed at Lydia’s, the kitchen and living room as well). Chris liked to think that he gave as well as he got, but somehow he always ended up substantially more marked-up.

“Injuries caused by an alpha,” Derek said smugly, when Chris complained.

It wasn’t that Chris minded the marks—they faded quickly enough, after all, and Allison was very good at pretending she didn’t see them—but that he wanted Derek equally marked. It was an impulse that worried him, not just for the feral nature of it, an instinct to claim that felt foreign and _right_ all at once, but also because he had yet to get any indication Derek would welcome such a thing. Derek, who had used up a significant stockpile of spare toothbrushes because apparently leaving one of his own seemed to be too permanent a move.

Chris forgave him the disregard for the environment, the lack of commitment, and even the morning breath that resulted when Chris forgot to buy a new stock in time. For Derek, and what Derek _was_ willing to give, Chris could forgive a lot of things.

A persistent ringing interrupted Chris’s enjoyment of a demonstration of this very phenomenon, and in particular of Derek’s ability to destroy both Chris’s capability of thought (victim to the enthusiastic exertions of Derek’s mouth) and his bed sheets (victim to the out-of-control drag of Chris’s claws). Chris first heard the noise only faintly, an annoying addition to the buzz in his head, but when Derek pulled off with an unfairly sensual pop of suction and spit, the noise sharpened into something recognizable as his doorbell.

Derek looked at him expectantly. Chris wasn’t sure why Derek expected him to be able to do anything at this point, much less move.

Finally Chris sighed, “Fine, I’ll get the door,” and resentfully threw on the minimal apparel necessary for front-door opening.

It was not, as he’d been half-suspecting, an Allison who’d forgotten her keys, or a neighbor calling to complain about the noise (and they could be loud; Chris wouldn’t blame them for complaining).

It was a man he’d once considered a brother, and written off as one of the sacrifices implicit in giving up the hunter lifestyle: Nate Anders. They’d saved each other’s lives, on occasion, and on repeat. There was probably some degree of trust stored up from each life-saving success, Chris felt. A backlog, to be drawn upon, in touchy instances, like now, when an old friend who also happened to be hunter dropped by and wanted to “talk.”

“Nate,” Chris said as he held the door open, at an acute angle that said, _I really don’t want you to come in._ “Been a while.”

“Yep,” Nate said, shifting his duffle over his shoulder. Weighted down, Chris knew, by at least four varieties of military-grade weaponry and werewolf-specific ammunition. “Gonna invite me in?”

Chris hesitated. Word was definitely out that he and Allison had thrown their lot in with the Beacon Hills pack. He wasn’t sure how known it was that he had a particularly personal connection.

“No,” came Derek’s voice from behind Chris, as did—to Chris’s eternal surprise—an arm that snaked around Chris’s waist. “We’re busy. Call ahead next time.”

Nate raised an eyebrow, and Chris said, “Yep, got dinner plans—sorry.” Because in the Code, there were internal codes. Phrases that said _help, I’m being held hostage,_ and ones that said _I’ve got it under control, but I’ll call if I need back-up,_ and ones that said, _Trust me, and let it go._ Chris was fairly certain that the all-clear had never been signaled in quite such a circumstance before, but he was hoping Nate would take him at his word.

Nate nodded slowly. “Well—give me a call, then, when you’re free. We can catch up. I’ll be in town a couple days.”

That was...not a good sign. But Chris nodded back and said, “I’ll do that. You need directions to a good hotel?”

“Nope,” Nate said, with one last searching look. “I’m good. Gotta say, though, this isn’t quite the welcome I was expecting, Argent.”

“Things change,” Chris said dryly. “Call you later.” And with a wave—long enough of one to make sure Nate had gotten on the elevator and was indeed leaving—he said another goodbye.

“We’re busy, huh?” he asked Derek in wry amusement. But Derek took his time in answering, and only after some signal only he could hear (the sound of Nate driving away, Chris suspected), did Derek even look at Chris.

“Well, we _were_. Until you decided something else was more important.”

“Never more important,” Chris said. “Just more urgent, unless you wanted our afternoon delight interrupted by wolfsbane bullets.”

Derek grunted, still looking disgruntled enough that Chris had to fight the urge to ruffle his hair.

“No current hunters to visit while you’re here, I promise,” Chris said gently.

“Even when I’m out, though—not at home,” Derek said, and then looked uncomfortable.

Chris just nodded. “Fair enough.”

The situation was not resolved. Chris had been waiting for this visit—not Nate’s, specifically, but a hunter’s, in general—for some time now. It was inevitable.

It was inevitable, too, that when they met later for coffee at the diner Nate said (with genuine sympathy), “I may have to kill you someday. Nothing personal.”

Chris nodded. It wasn’t personal. He might have to kill Nate, as well. It was neither likely nor unlikely, merely another possible outcome in a violent and dangerous world. There was no one on this planet that he might not, in some situation, have to kill. He liked to think that the ones he would most regret killing would understand.

“I’d expect nothing less,” he said, holding a hand out.

The handshake was the cauterization of a burned bridge, and they each knew it, but when Nate dropped him back off at the apartment, they smiled and parted like the friends they used to be. There were many enemies Chris had made who never quite stopped feeling like friends underneath.

Or like family.

* * *

Derek had come downstairs unsure if he was supposed to offer support or pretend he’d heard nothing. The pretending Chris would know for a lie, but he might appreciate the politeness. Or he might be insulted by the pretense. Derek stayed quiet because he couldn’t decide, and into quiet Chris could read the response he was hoping for.

“You think rather loudly,” Chris said wryly. “It’s OK that you heard. I think even Nate expected that you would. You could’ve come with us, if you wanted.”

“You could take care of yourself,” Derek said, and only after it was out of his mouth did he realize he was answering a conversation they’d never had.

Chris’s mouth quirked up, more in affection than amusement. “Thanks,” he said, “but you’re welcome to take care of me whenever you feel the need.”

Something broke within Derek at that—or maybe it was freed, maybe it was loosed, maybe it was revealed—he didn’t know what exactly was happening, but it was a change, and it had his heart moving strangely. Because sometimes he _did_ need, and yet Chris was always going to be able to take care of himself. Was, in some part of him, more of an alpha than Derek would ever be.

Derek had replaced a windshield Chris shattered; healed from wounds his family caused. It wasn’t healthy, probably, to try to ignore that, but when he tried to think of people he knew who hadn’t hurt or tried to hurt him, he came up pretty short, so forgiveness was probably essential, however foolish. And here, now, it came so much easier than he ever thought it would.

He thought of the ways that he could say this, so that Chris would understand; he thought of the ways having said these things might change things; he thought of less-revealing things that might still say enough; he thought, until the silence became an answer all its own, and Chris moved on. Unbothered, because for some reason it never seemed to bother him when Derek couldn’t think of things to say. Scott got frustrated; Stiles just talked more; Cora had sometimes rolled her eyes and said, “Let me know when your brain catches up with mine.” Chris just nodded like that was all the conversation that needed having anyway, and moved on.

And that, Derek thought—was why he might stay.

* * *

The day Allison sent in her declaration of intent for college, Chris took them both out to dinner, and made an empty-nest joke that fell particularly flat when Allison raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly at Derek. The next morning she cornered Derek, and, looking almost as uncomfortable as he felt, said, “Just—don’t hurt him?”

Derek couldn’t promise that, any more than he could ask her to promise that her father won’t hurt him.

“My dad has this whole convoluted speech about rabid dogs needing put down,” she continued, warningly, when he didn’t respond. “I totally have enough of it memorized to give a convincing rendition. Although not quite as ominous as his, because no one does ominous quite like Dad.”

“No need,” he said, “I don’t plan to.”

He didn’t say, _Your dad’s as likely to turn rabid as I am; maybe more._

“OK,” she said.

Chris, walking by the doorway, doubled back and stepped in. Taking in the scene, he asked, “Should I be worried?”

Allison rolled her eyes. “Just telling Derek I’ll shoot him if he hurts you.”

“That’s my girl,” Chris said affectionately. “Off to school with you, now.” He gave her a peck on the head as she exited, and turned to quirk an eyebrow at Derek. “Scared you off yet?”

“My survival instincts are a bit faulty,” Derek said, deadpan, “or so I’ve been told.”

“We’ll have to work on that, then,” Chris said, pulling him in closer. “I’ve kind of been hoping to keep you around.”

Derek let himself relax into the embrace, and tried to let it feel natural, even though it wasn’t; nothing about freely offered affection was natural; nothing about feeling this content was natural. But maybe someday it could be, and that was the idea he held to as he let himself return the hug, arms around back, and breathe.


End file.
